BU Data Sciences Center | 665 Commonwealth Avenue | BU Central

[Longfellow]

So the entire 'tower' portion of the building is also controlled access. Basically each floor has a department that has moved into it (or multiple floors) and there are signs everywhere that say "Math Department Only", etc. People will actually stop you in the hallway and ask you if you're a grad student for X department. BU has a bit of a dearth of seating/study spaces, due to there being like 30,000 people, so it is hard as ever to find little places to sit down at, like the many places on the tower floors.

BU in general, at an admin level, has a preoccupation / obsession with restricting access. Part of it is due to the space issue, but part of it is just the institutional culture... I remember when I was in school they removed all access to the front door of the College of Fine Arts (which used to be unlocked during the building's hours) requiring people to walk a extra 100 feet around the side of the building to go in. This was due to Covid, OK, fine... but then years later students had to start organizing petitions and postering to get them to open the door, which they said needed to be locked for 'security reasons'. They caved partially on hours it could be unlocked, but you get the idea. They are totally anal about this stuff. Part of it is that when you hire thousands of admin types, they need work to do.

 

[bdurden]

So the entire 'tower' portion of the building is also controlled access. Basically each floor has a department that has moved into it (or multiple floors) and there are signs everywhere that say "Math Department Only", etc. People will actually stop you in the hallway and ask you if you're a grad student for X department. BU has a bit of a dearth of seating/study spaces, due to there being like 30,000 people, so it is hard as ever to find little places to sit down at, like the many places on the tower floors.

BU in general, at an admin level, has a preoccupation / obsession with restricting access. Part of it is due to the space issue, but part of it is just the institutional culture... I remember when I was in school they removed all access to the front door of the College of Fine Arts (which used to be unlocked during the building's hours) requiring people to walk a extra 100 feet around the side of the building to go in. This was due to Covid, OK, fine... but then years later students had to start organizing petitions and postering to get them to open the door, which they said needed to be locked for 'security reasons'. They caved partially on hours it could be unlocked, but you get the idea. They are totally anal about this stuff. Part of it is that when you hire thousands of admin types, they need work to do.

^This. The BU culture persists from, believe it, the Silber Administration which was positively authoritarian about campus access. It’s marginally improved since then and mostly by way of protest.

As REM once said: “don’t get caught in Warren Towers”

 

[TomOfBoston]

My understanding of this building, admittedly as someone not part of the BU campus community, is that a) the terraces are mostly actually a green roof with very limited terrace bits with seating and b) the portion that are meant to be more "public" for general student use is the podium section, which contains the classrooms, and that the tower section is occupied by faculty offices and institutional research / departmental space - more grad student workstations than lecture halls. If grad students count as faculty, I can generally understand the restrictions from a purely a " all locked doors up here are staff only, and we're working but we can give you a quick tour for the view." I've always thought of them as being a workplace amenity.

I went to UMass Amherst, which culturally seemed to be "BU in Western Mass," Many of the buildings there were built with balconies, namely the The Southwest Towers & Low Rises, and O Hill. My God the lore... I realize that this building isn't a dorm, but inebriated college students will do what they will anywhere they have access.

It could be as innocent as somehow getting a cow onto the 20th floor balcony, or in the form they existed in my time there, *several* students fell/jumped every year from the O-Hill balconies, not to mention suicide Sylvan or the historical falls from the SWest Towers or the student who died elevator surfing in one. A 20 story fall is a very hard lesson to learn, and I begin to understand the urge on the part of the administration to keep the undergrads away.

Tufts recently put up 10 foot high glass walls around their library terrace to prevent incidents.